Casandra Martin

The Great Smoky Mountains are beautiful. The horizon is painted with deepening bands of blue as the mountains frame the distance between sky and ground. The upper elevations still have snow and ice clinging to the crevices of the cliffs. The wind blows across the summit as visitors crowd to the edges of the overlook to take in the deep beauty of the mountains.

Trees cover the peaks. Each level of elevation plays host to different variations of vegetation, supporting ecosystems that nurture plant and animal life. As we crossed the Newfound Gap, it was the hemlock trees that caught my eye. Hemlocks are amazing trees. They are called “the redwoods of the east.” They seem to grow straight out of the rock, anchoring their roots in the craggy stone of the sides of the mountain. They look sturdy and strong, able to withstand the wind, rain, and snows that pelt the mountains.

Instead, the mountain was covered with dead trees. They hadn’t died in a winter storm. A fierce wind hadn’t been able to knock them over. They were dead because of an insect. A little bug, the hemlock woolly adelgid, has moved into the neighborhood and the results have been devastating. The insect injects the tree with toxins as it feeds on its sap. The toxin blocks the path of the nutrients through the tree, causing the needles of the hemlock to die. The trees literally starve to death because of a little bug.

If you were to take a guess, it would not seem like an insect no bigger than the end of your little finger could do any damage to a tree that can grow more than 150 feet tall. Yet today more than eighty percent of the hemlock trees are dead.

The hemlock trees remind us of a sobering truth. Sin works like the hemlock woolly adelgid. It seems small and harmless, yet attaches itself where we are most vulnerable. It can interrupt our connection to Christ, leaving us to slowly starve to death.

My Jesus Resolution today is to be on the lookout for little things that can have a big impact. I want to be aware that every choice has the potential to draw me closer to Jesus or open my heart to a little bit of sin’s toxins. It may not seem like much in the moment, but once the bug takes hold, it has the power to bring down even the mightiest tree.

“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”  – Martin Luther King, Jr.

I love Dr. King’s perspective on prayer. Prayer is essential to life as a Christian. It gives us focus, shapes perspective, honors holiness, and fuels surrender. In prayer, we meet God. We draw near to His presence and learn to bow in submission to His sovereignty and humble ourselves before His mighty power. Our eyes, which get so distracted and dazzled by the world, become reoriented in the light of His glory.

Faith finds its footing in prayer. Prayer acknowledges who is King and who is servant. It helps us seek His will in all things, asks Him to move in our circumstances and struggles, and opens our hearts to the blessings He longs to pour into our lives.

Intimacy is born in the arena of prayer. It is here that our souls become most transparent, our motives move into the penetrating light of His wisdom, and our actions must stand beneath the gaze of His faithfulness and purity. Here is where we are most deeply known and where we learn to know Him. He invites us into prayer because it is the place where relationship grows best.

In experiencing the power of prayer, we are transformed. As we pour out our hearts to God in prayer, He moves in and fills us with Himself. Prayer helps us shed the selfish, me-oriented baggage that we tend to carry around. In its place, God changes us to look more like Jesus. With each word, we take on more of His character. With each confession, we receive more grace. With each note of praise, we learn to seek His face. With each act of surrender, we walk deeper into His presence.

My Jesus Resolution today is to pray. I want to pray without ceasing. I want to develop an awareness of His presence that is so vibrant that I can’t help but invest myself in conversation with Him. I want prayer to be as natural as breathing.